Just for me...

It was 4:55 am.
God had a gift just for me - a beautiful sunrise peaking over the trees of the YWAM Brisbane base.
Sure hundreds, okay millions of other people saw it too. But in that moment I felt as though God was lifting up the sun and smiling down on JUST me.
He's like that you know.
God connects with each individual in a way that is the most meaningful.
The sunrise was important because it's been a bumpy few days in my walk with God.
My school has been studying aspects of spiritual warfare - and while it can be scary it doesn't have to be. But anyway, a lot of fear had been welling up inside of me. Partly because I felt like I needed to be strong for many of the other students in my school. And also because of a lie I'd been living with = you can't rely on anybody but yourself. I even associated that sentiment with God. I wasn't fully trusting Him either.
The funny thing is I came to YWAM with a deep desire to fully surrender my actions, thoughts,daily life and future to God. But in reality, I was still compartmentalizing everything into two categories: the stuff in which I need God's help and the stuff in which I can do on my own. Silly.
And when the going was good, it was fine. But in reality, I need God to carry me. And that's not me being weak. In fact, even if it was, that's fine. Because when I'm weak, He is strong!
So this sunshine was a beautiful gift from God just a day after telling Him that He gets all the control.

Also at the YWAM Brisbane base is a lovely patchwork of sod and grass. I wish I'd been taking photos all along, because this grass is a great metaphor of what is happening in all of our spirits here at YWAM. When the two schools (Frontiers and MAD) first arrived at the base this hill was just a bunch of mud, as a result of weeks of heavy rain. But the base director wanted to grow some grass. So he bought sod and sprinkled grass in between. Clearly, the base didn't have enough money to buy all sod. So over the weeks the sod has taken root and the grass seed has sprouted to fill in the gaps. It's not perfect but it's looking good.
This grass is just like our spirits.
We all arrived at the base as a muddy mess that God wanted to turn into something beautiful. He planted seeds in our soils and slowly over time the gaps in our spirits have been filling in with the growth of those seeds He planted.
We're all still works in progress, but what a great job the Master Gardener is doing in all our lives.
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A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times. Mark 4:3-8